the Richest Affair

That's it...I'm ruined. I can't be fixed and I frankly don't want to be. Nothing can be done about this, this way that I feel. It's rooted deeply inside me and I won't budge. I won't change, life will always be this way, it's just who I am and I have to accept it and so do you. People have tried, you know? They've tried to talk me out of this. People who just don't understand. Well, honestly, even I've tried to change things, make them different. Of course it was a vain attempt. This way just isn't a path I walk, it's just even just part of me, it's literally just who I am, part of my being. Sounds so negative doesn't it? I think so. Well, at least this is how it rolls around in my head some days. Which is sad. Seriously. I've shed tears over it. Guys, I love someone so much that it's utterly joyful and terribly aching at the same time. The Richest Affair. It's Him. It's Jesus. He penetrates in ways that no one else ever has or ever could and I'm ruined because of it. Nothing or no one else will ever do. I'm stuck on Him. I just think about Him and being with Him and I'm overwhelmed because I'm so fulfilled and yet still wanting so much all at once. Sorrowful yet always rejoicing. He's better. He's so much better than anything else. He's just BETTER. He's sweeter. And I just want to go and be with Him. I went to the wedding tonight of my two friends and to just see how much they wanted to be together. Not just today, but even months leading up to their blessed union, they just want to be together in their love. Two lovers, ravished by the other and not wanting any other for their own. And so is my heart...aching, longing, calling out to Him. I just want to go. I don't even care what I do: gather at His feet, curl in His lap, fall facedown, dance/sing/laugh for joy with Him, stand in silent submission. You know, it just doesn't matter any more. It really doesn't and I'm not sure it ever really did. I just want to BE with Him. And the Book of Revelation talks about that day. That blessed day that is promised to come and bring together the glorious Bridegroom with His pure and spotless Bride. In chapter 4, the Word proclaims our promise of worshipping the King in His very presence, falling down before Him in humble adoration and wondrous rejoicing. And so I want that. I pray that day comes quickly. Haste that blessed day, Lord. And I want that promise so deeply that my spirit cries out for the place I was made for. And I seriously ask the Lord why I can't just come to be with Him now. Why, Lord, why? And He says that He has plans. Plans? Let's scrap those plans and just BE together. No. Because if that were so, then I wouldn't be here pleading with Him to let me go Home now. BIG. Something big is in store. The Lord of all creation says that His work in my life is so important that I must stay here until it is completed. And so a smile makes its way across my face and I know He is loving me. How could His longing to be with me not be far surpass mine? O, the longings between us. They are great. All of creation waits and groans for the revealing of the sons of God and for the union of Christ and His lovely Bride. There really is no other like Him. None. Go ahead. Try to prove me wrong. You'll come right back to where I am. Wondering how and why He could love a wretch like me. But He does. And I love Him. We delight in each other and our joys abound. And so, until the fulfillment of my days, I will remain sorrowful yet always rejoicing as I am delighted by the Richest Affair...

And this is Life...

So, some things have been coming my way lately that God has been using to challenge and refine my idea of living. My schedule has been thrown off and I've had to take things a little easier than I would like to, especially in the midst of the storm of dead week and upcoming finals. I experienced stuff that has made me feel like I am outside the sphere of life, on the outside looking in. It's as if I've been watching everyone else scurry about in serving the Lord in their lives in various ways and there I was uselessly sitting on a top shelf. But these are lies and not the beautiful Truth that comes forth from the lips of my Lord. Today I spent some time in Beck Chapel just praying and reading and God spoke some beautiful words to me. He brought to my mind John 14:6: Jesus answered them, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life and no one comes to the Father except through Me." Yeah, God, I know that you are Life. But He wanted to share with me some specifics. So in my private thoughts to Him I wrote: Nothing I do, say, think, or feel gives me life or makes me alive...not the blood in my veins, the breath in my lungs, the beat of my heart, nor the thoughts of my mind constitute my vitality. Jesus, You have given me life through the sacrifice of Your own. So that even if my heart stops beating, my breath ceases, or my mind fails, I still have life eternally in You. Praise to the Lord for He is good. How beautiful is that!

[And you He made a l i v e, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us a l i v e together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.--Ephesians 2:1-7]

Doesn't this bring new meaning to the idea of death losing its sting? Jesus has killed death for all those who believe in His name. Believers can now no longer be dead nor can we ever die because even leaving this earth means that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. |2 Cor 5:8|

Oh how the Lord blessed me today with joy through the hope that is His Son, Jesus Christ. Despite how I feel, physically or emotionally, I am living the fullness of Life through Him who saved me by His grace. This is Jesus and this is Life...